


Too Much Has Passed Between Us

by Lefaym



Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Canon Disabled Character, Enemy Lovers, M/M, Missing Scene, Old mutants in love, original timeline, x1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-22 02:36:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2491334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lefaym/pseuds/Lefaym
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The years are heavy between them.</p>
<p>(Missing scene from X1, that incorporates history from XMFC/DOFP.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Much Has Passed Between Us

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to fera_festiva and in_the_bottle for betaing and cheerleading!

As Erik leaves Capitol Hill, an address and a room number appear in his head. 

He tells himself that this time, he won’t go. It serves no purpose, and only distracts him from more important matters. Worse, it makes him vulnerable: years of discipline have taught Erik to control his thoughts, to hide those things that must be kept hidden, but it isn’t difficult to slip, particularly when -- well. There is every reason not to go. 

And yet two hours later he is in the hotel lobby, stepping quickly toward the elevator.

It doesn’t take him long to find Charles’ room. The door is fitted with one of those new electronic locks that require a card rather than a key, but that makes no difference to Erik; the internal mechanism is still the same.

Erik steps inside and sees Charles sitting by the window with a book on his lap. A glass of scotch rests on the windowsill beside him, but he doesn’t have the chessboard out.

Eventually, Charles sets the book aside and looks up at him. “Good evening, Erik.”

“Hello, Charles.”

For a few long seconds, silence is thick between them, but then Charles smiles. “Come over here, love,” he says. 

Getting right to the point, then. Well, Erik won’t complain; they’ve already said all that needs to be said. He crosses the room and kneels in front of Charles’ chair. 

“It’s been some time.”

“It has,” Charles agrees. More than a year, in fact, since Charles had last tried to interfere with Erik’s plans, bringing them into conflict, and -- almost inevitably -- into bed.

What fools they both are.

Charles leans forward, and after a moment, Erik mirrors him. One of Charles’ hands curls behind Erik’s head, and Charles pulls him in further. Charles’ mouth is warm, and Erik can taste the scotch on his breath. Against all of his better judgment, Erik lets himself sink into it.

“I’ve missed you,” Erik says when they break apart, and he means it far more than he wants to. 

Charles kisses him again in response, harder this time, almost rough. Erik is reminded suddenly of a night twenty-five years ago, the first time they’d come together after Mystique had broken him out of the Pentagon. Charles had been so angry then, so reckless. Something ignites in Erik’s stomach at the thought that Charles still has that in him; that the mask of the wise and calm Professor can still slip away.

Erik begins to work his way under Charles’ shirt, but Charles stays his hand. “Let’s take this to bed,” he suggests, and Erik is quick to agree.

Getting there doesn’t take long, not with Erik’s power to help things along, and once they’re ready, Charles draws him in again, and Erik finds himself pulled under.

Charles is gentler now than he was before, but underneath it all is the same fierce intensity that leaves no room for anything else. Erik tries to reciprocate. Over the decades, he has learned exactly the places he needs to touch, to press, to push Charles over the edge. But today, Charles is having none of it. He brushes Erik’s hands aside, and won’t let Erik use his mouth. Instead, Charles uses his own hands, his own mouth, to bring Erik to the precipice. Erik can feel Charles moving along the surface of his mind, but he can tell from long experience that Charles is not in deep. He might share a remote echo of what Erik can feel right now, but nothing more.

In the midst of everything, Erik doesn’t allow himself to wonder. But afterwards, when he is spent, and they are both lying back with an inch of space between them, the questions play on his mind.

“What was your purpose here?” he asks finally, turning his head toward Charles. “What do you get out of this?”

Charles smiles and looks up at the ceiling. “I like to see you enjoy yourself.”

Erik laughs, once. “It's out of the goodness of your heart then, is it? Forgive me, old friend, if I lack your students' faith in your altruism.”

“You're quite right to doubt me, Erik. This was pure selfishness, I'm afraid.”

“Do go on.”

“I doubt that you truly want to know.” Charles’ voice is light, almost teasing, but there’s an edge to it, too.

“Humor me.”

Charles sighs and turns to look at Erik. “Sometimes, when you lose yourself, you forget,” Charles says softly. “Just for a moment, you forget to be angry with the world. With me. I didn’t want to be so caught up in my own feelings that I missed it.”

Erik grows still. A shard of ice twists its way through his abdomen. “You live in a world of delusion, Charles,” he says.

Charles looks away. “Perhaps.”

It’s time to be done with this. Erik swings himself off the bed, and gathers his clothes. He dresses in the bathroom; he doesn’t want to feel Charles’ eyes on him, and he is relieved that Charles has the good sense, for once, to stay out of his mind.

When Erik emerges, Charles has pulled himself into a sitting position, his back against the headboard. If he is still perturbed by their earlier exchange, he shows no sign of it. “I take it you’ll be on your way?” he asks.

Erik nods. “I have business to attend to.”

“Of course.” There is a bitter edge to Charles’ words, but his face remains serene. How easy it is for Charles to speak of forgetting, of leaving anger behind, protected as he is by his walls and his illusions.

“Mystique sends her love,” Erik says, because some things should not be forgotten. He is rewarded when Charles flinches.

Mystique has done no such thing, of course, and they both know it. Erik doubts that Mystique has felt anything that could properly be called love since she escaped from Trask’s laboratories all those years ago. He envies her that, sometimes.

Charles closes his eyes and rubs his forehead with his fingertips. “Leave,” he says.

Erik takes a step toward the door, but something pulls him back. Cursing himself silently, he turns back to Charles. He finds himself walking to the bedside rather than the door, and when he’s close enough, he leans in, and presses his lips to the top of Charles’ head. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, and it’s the truth and a lie all at once. _Too much has passed between us, old friend._ Too much to be forgiven, too much that can never be recovered.

Charles says nothing, but his hand finds Erik’s for a moment, and Erik feels a flash of regret that he knows is not his own.

Erik does turn away then. He turns and he walks out the door without looking back. When he has put enough distance between them, he promises himself that next time, he will not be so weak; next time, he will not go.

He doubts he will keep that promise.


End file.
